MSC Industrial Supply

MSC Industrial Supply is one of the largest distributors of Metalworking and Maintenance, Repair and Operations ("MRO") supplies to industrial customers throughout the United States. MSC employs one of the industry's largest sales forces and distributes over one million industrial products from approximately 3,000 suppliers.

Their competitive advantages are rooted in their focus on customer service, which includes a 99% in-stock availability guarantee with next day standard delivery. Per MSC, “every major milestone in our history has been based on servicing the needs of our customers.” And, their mission is consistent with this, which is to “be the best Industrial Distributor in the world as measured by associates, customers, owners and suppliers.”

Pro QC International has partnered with MSC since February of 2011 and assists as their quality eyes and ears in factories where many of MSC’s Exclusive Brand industrial tools are being manufactured primarily in Taiwan, China and Thailand. MSC also has internal quality control resources, but finds Pro QC to be a cost-effective and flexible solution to aid in meeting their evolving requirements.

We reached out to Mitch Whitlow, Business Manager, Supply Chain Management & Quality at MSC, and asked him how partnering with Pro QC has provided his organization value. He responded “Pro QC helps by augmenting our internal resources to provide expanded QC coverage of our Asia supply chain. This is particularly valuable to us in locations outside of mainland China where we do not have our own QC resources.”

Regarding what Mitch feels is Pro QC’s most significant contribution to MSC, he advises that “Pro QC has been able to provide a consistent level of QC services to meet MSC’s needs. MSC purchases a wide range of industrial products from our suppliers and Pro QC has partnered with us to train their inspectors on our products through joint inspections, ensuring that only trained inspectors are used to inspect our products on an ongoing basis. With Pro QC, we know we are getting professional, consistent QC services and timely reports by trained, knowledgeable inspectors at all of our supplier locations.”

At Pro QC, a primary source of new clients is referrals so we wanted to ask Mitch why he would recommend Pro QC to others. When asked, he reiterated that Pro QC is “a cost effective, flexible solution for MSC’s QC services in Asia, has worked closely with MSC to tailor their services to best meet our needs, and has inspectors in many locations. We have been able to easily and quickly expand our QC services with Pro QC across Asia, and even utilize Pro QC’s services in Europe on occasion. We have been very pleased with the level of service we get from Pro QC in all of the locations where we utilize their resources.”

When it comes to selecting Pro QC over similar providers, Mitch explains that Pro QC’s “willingness to partner with us to provide a tailored solution to meet our needs, as well as my previous positive experience with Pro QC in Taiwan, were the main factors in selecting Pro QC over a number of other QC service providers we looked at.”

The Pro QC team looks forward to a continued partnership with MSC and sincerely values our clients that are so dedicated to quality and reducing the associated risks and costs to enhance their customer’s experience.